


fantasy

by renlyne



Series: apparently I write gryles drabbles now [3]
Category: BBC Radio 1 RPF, One Direction (Band)
Genre: Canon Compliant, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-05
Updated: 2017-11-05
Packaged: 2019-01-29 22:13:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12640263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/renlyne/pseuds/renlyne
Summary: 04 November 2017"Rather than treating filming like another day in the office, Harry’s best mate Grimmy explained to us that Harry ‘never really gets time off’ – so one of the driving forces of filming the show was to – ironically – give him a break. ‘We had a good day out hanging out,’ Grimmy revealed." -Metro News





	fantasy

 

“Did you see? How we looked?” Harry’s eyes were a little wide, and he was speaking a bit faster and higher than he normally did, brandishing some screenshot of the special as if long enough had passed that Nick might have forgotten about it.

“What, you, glowing and vibrant and putting Julie Andrews to shame in your ability to wear curtains, and me, old and haggard and wearing horizontal stripes? I _did_ , in fact—”

Harry was rolling his eyes. “Don’t be ridiculous,” which, excuse him, Harry had looked—well, like he had—while wearing flared floral dress pants. Nick was not the ridiculous one in this situation. “I meant, like, our faces.”

Nick looked around for his drink, couldn’t see where he’d left it, and settled for substituting alcohol with laughter.

“Completely missed them. Total mystery, but they’d blacked both of our faces out on my screen. It was like a Halloween special, more-than-nearly-headless-Nick—”

Harry was undeterred, “Did you see how happy we looked?”

Jesus.

“Haz, what…”

“I was watching it and thinking about what you said, about like, the hiatus and how it had got crazy there, for a little while. And I think it’s…I think it’s died down a bit, now. I think I could, y’know—and people wouldn’t. It’s died down, a bit,” he repeated.

Which. “It hasn’t. Haz, it really, really hasn’t died down. What are you—”

Harry didn’t even seem to hear him, “Do you remember Mallorca?”

Nick could feel his heart rate pick up slightly, his body recognizing the danger before his mind. “Obviously I remember Mallorca, that was like five—”

“I thought it then, too.”

“You—”

“I saw that picture of us, and I thought,” he took a breath, “Look at that. Look at how—I just…I thought _it’s going to be us_ , one day. I’m going to—like, fuck, look at Pix and George, Aimee and Ian, even Jeff and Glenne,” he ran a hand through his hair. “I thought, that’s going to be us. I’m going to marry him, someday.”

Nick felt like someone had sucked all the air out of the room.

“You didn’t.”

“What?”

“You didn’t think that. You’ve just—you’ve had too much wine, and you’re exhausted from tour, and I’ve lulled you into some sort of hypnotic hallucinatory state with my candles. Always dangerous, buying a new scent, but they were out of the usual one. With vanilla? Couldn’t find it. Too close to Christmas, guess they were all sold out. Which—that’s a bit of a shit present, innit? I mean, not for us, obviously, but if it wasn’t like—” _a thing_ , he almost said, which, Christ. “If it was just—here! I could think of literally nothing that you might like, so I bought you the most impersonal gift of all time! That or I’m sending a message, hate the way your house smells, please fix it, ta! Which, not the most flattering th—”

“Nick.”

He really needed that drink.

“Harold.”

“Stop panicking.”

“I’m not—panicking. I’m just…you’ve got no idea what you’re—You realize you’re Harry Styles? Like actual Harry Styles, off of everything under the bloody sun, linked to, to give the abridged version, Taylor Swift and Kendall Jenner and Tess Ward and Camille Rowe? You did not _think that was going to be us_. Which—is fine, Haz, obviously. Almost positive I’d have gone for Taylor Swift in your position. Bit batshit, evidently, but like, I’ve seen her. Minimal judgment. Your babies would have been a new breed of genetically guaranteed beauty—”

Harry was biting his lip, “This has taken a turn.”

It’s not that Nick disagreed, exactly, but, “What, and that’s my fault? _I’m going to marry—_ ”

“Don’t tell me you’ve never thought about it.”

Nick wasn’t sure exactly when or how, in the course of watching reruns of the Grinch, he’d completely lost control of his life, but…here they were.

“Of course I’ve—” Harry’s entire fucking face lit up, and Nick really did not deserve this. “But it was a moment! A brief moment of insanity before I blinked and you were still Harry bloody Styles and I was me and it was very very clearly never going to happen, and—”

“Of course it—” Harry shook his head slightly, caught his eye, “It was always going to be us, Grim. Don’t you—since I was seventeen, I’ve always thought it was going to be us.”

“You’re like, a bloody Hallmark card, all of the sudden. You did not think—”

“I did. Since Christmas, that year. With Aimee. I did.”

Nick was fundamentally unequipped for this.

“Haz, please. Let’s not—why are you…”

Harry bit his lip, “Gem texted me, after the special. Something about that scene of us with the chips being an excellent audition tape for me to send in if I ever wanted to star in a romcom, and she was joking, obviously, but. That was…it was the best day. There were cameras everywhere and I was wearing way too much makeup and my back was killing me and it was—the best day, still. Don’t you want to, like,” he broke off, licked his lips. “That could just be life. We could just—”

“We can’t, Haz. We—”

“Why not?”

And Harry was a bit oblivious sometimes, but he wasn’t that obtuse. “Would you like that list alphabetically, or?”

“Grim, if, if one of the reasons is that you just fundamentally don’t want to, then that’s—that’s the only one I need to hear. That’s it, I’ll drop it and I swear I won’t be, like. But if it’s not, if the list is just, like, Heat and the Mail and twitter, then do you really want to, like—do you care?”

“Do I…Haz, _you_ care. You pretend you’re all laissez-faire, but you’re so…image conscious. Intentional, with what you put out, and it would be. Madness. It would be madness, and all that control you’ve got? It would be gone. And you’d hate me for that,” his voice broke on _hate_ , and Nick stopped to take a breath. It was shakier than he’d have liked to admit.

Harry was shaking his head. “I wouldn’t.”

“Easy to say now.”

Nick watched as Harry settled back into the sofa, ended up sitting closer than he’d been before. He shuffled around until their thighs were touching, leaned himself into Nick’s side, and Nick sighed, tried to calm his breathing into something resembling normal.

“I wouldn’t, and it’s Christmas, Grim. Will you at least think about it?”

“Yeah,” Nick lied, after a pause, picturing media mobbings and photographers waiting outside his house and headlines about his age and Harry eventually waking up and looking at him earnestly and telling him that he was genuinely sorry, and he did love him, but he just couldn’t keep up this level of commitment, wasn’t ready to settle down forever with two dogs and a half-imagined baby, didn’t want to trap Nick in a half-life. “Yeah, I’ll think about it.”  
  
  
  


 

**Author's Note:**

> come cry with me on [tumblr](http://daretomarvel.tumblr.com/) ♡


End file.
